The World Igbo Congress, WIC, a group for all Igbo in the diaspora has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to arrest and prosecute Abdul Azeez Suleiman, who spoke on behalf of a coalition of Northern group threatening the whole country.
According to the group, Ndigbo has a right as granted by the constitution to establish its indigenous militia policing groups for Igbo security and self-defence.
The group quickly noted that it will hold the president liable should any harm come to any Igbo following the activities of the notorious Fulani herdsmen.
The statement by the Chairman WIC, Prof Anthony Ejiofor, reads thus : “World Igbo Congress and all Igbo believe that the killings by the notorious untouchables called Fulani herdsmen, as well as the current threats of reprisals with the 30 day ultimatum, constitute to a harbinger for the impending darkness that is about to envelop the Igbo in Nigeria.
“We call on the Federal government of Nigeria to summarily arrest and prosecute Mr. Abdul Aseez Suleiman and his group for incitement and for a threat to conduct domestic terrorism against citizens of Nigeria failing which the Igbo of Southern Nigeria will use our own methods to carry out justice and defend our own people.
“We in the Diaspora have long observed that the current unitary Federal structure foisted on the people by successive Hausa/Fulani-run military, is unsustainable. It has become an urgent imperative to dismantle this oligarchic-Caliphate structure of the Federation and return to the founding federal system of our original republic. It is clear to us, given the current lopsided structure of the leadership, and constitution of the Federal security apparatus and law enforcement organizations in Nigeria, that the Igbo people of Southern Nigeria can longer expect legitimate protection by a National Security system under the current Federal government.
“The WIC, therefore, invokes the law of federations that grants the Igbo the right to establish its own Igbo National Defense Volunteers as a Homeland Defense Corp. We the Igbo have our traditional methods, which we shielded in submission to the convention of consent to a National government to which we conceded under a federating charter to provide security to the nation.
“In the face of the current rise of insecurity, and severe threat to the nation, particularly by marauding pastoralists to which the Federal government has demonstrated a lack of will to check or punish; the Igbo will no longer leave the security of its lands and peoples to such a dysfunctional and some may say, complicit institution of government. In the coming weeks the WIC will go into consultations with various Igbo community organizations, Town Unions, and Guild Societies, to explore the process of re-constituting the Igbo Egwugwu – the ancient citizen’s militia and policing system of the Igbo world to provide effective and legitimate security to Igbo land and people.”
